The Pelicans' situation has been unstable ever since the franchise relocated from Charlotte in 2002, and especially since Katrina. This excruciating state of limbo unfortunately defines the Pelicans. It's difficult to say where they belong.

You get the sense Ralph Sampson, if he had been designed by NASA engineers rather than a cruel god, still would have ended up as one of the great Yeah, But guys of his generation: an immensely gifted, lightly snakebitten antecedent to Vince Carter and Chris Webber.

John Collins has got to be sore because it seems like most of the NBA world has been sleeping on him.

Last season, he averaged 19.8 points and 9.8 rebounds while notching a 62.7 true shooting percentage. The only other players to top 19 points, nine boards and a 60 true shooting percentage percent were Karl-Anthony Towns and the league's reigning MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Collins, who will turn 22 on Sept. 23, still has plenty of room to grow.

One big reason is co-star Trae Young, with whom he built chemistry over the course of last season. Before the All-Star break, Young assisted him on 2.4 buckets per game. That number leaped to 3.3 after it.

Overall, Collins' second-half splits featured 20.3 points and 10.3 boards per game. If he can be a 20/10 guy next year while the Hawks get into the playoff hunt in the bottom-light Eastern Conference, he has a real shot at being named an All-Star.

John Collins has got to be sore because it seems like most of the NBA world has been sleeping on him.

Last season, he averaged 19.8 points and 9.8 rebounds while notching a 62.7 true shooting percentage. The only other players to top 19 points, nine boards and a 60 true shooting percentage percent were Karl-Anthony Towns and the league's reigning MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Collins, who will turn 22 on Sept. 23, still has plenty of room to grow.

One big reason is co-star Trae Young, with whom he built chemistry over the course of last season. Before the All-Star break, Young assisted him on 2.4 buckets per game. That number leaped to 3.3 after it.

Overall, Collins' second-half splits featured 20.3 points and 10.3 boards per game. If he can be a 20/10 guy next year while the Hawks get into the playoff hunt in the bottom-light Eastern Conference, he has a real shot at being named an All-Star.

I honestly don't think either of Collins or Trae are super stars, but they are stars who can be better than the sum of their parts with chemistry. That's the main reason I am very high on Hunter and Cam joining them. Both could be better than they are if they develop chemistry and Cam has that star potential to become a big 3. I mean, Alex Len averaged 19/6 his last five games starting last year just being able to knock down shots while all the attention was on Trae/JC. I'm just hoping we can keep a lot of these guys together for a while and maybe that chemistry will allow us to compete without a real super star.

The 2019-20 season will be John Collins' third as a pro, and it'll go a long way toward determining what kind of player he'll ultimately be.

As a rookie, he bounced around, ran the floor, snared offensive boards and finished with a block rate of 3.8 percent that ranked him just outside the league's elite tier of shot-swatters.

He seemed like a low-usage, high-energy role-filler, albeit one with the immense upside you'd attach to a 20-year-old. That outlook changed in Year 2 when Collins leaped from 15.7 points per 36 minutes to 23.4, upping his usage rate and nudging his true shooting percentage a bit higher (62.7 percent) in the process.

He shelved his shaky mid-range game and more than doubled his three-point attempt rate, hitting 34.8 percent of his deep tries. The updated version of Collins stopped defending the rim as effectively but became an efficient scorer who could produce plenty of volume with tantalizing stretch at 6'10".

If he combines the best parts of those first two years and proves he can play center more often (38 percent of his minutes came at the 5 as a rookie, against just 18 percent as a sophomore), Collins will be a star.

If defense continues to be an issue, or if Collins' impressive statistical production doesn't translate to wins, the Hawks will have a tricky decision when he becomes eligible for an extension on July 6, 2020.

Just about everyone who matters in Atlanta is on a rookie deal. Though it seems like the rebuild just started, Collins' extension—and with it, the Hawks' first chance to commit to their core—is just around the corner.

The potential problem is that if John and Trae take almost all the actions because there's not enough other players taking shots, plays..., they will look like All-Star before being really ones, and they will end up asking for Max without being sure they deserve it.I hope that the other young guys can have some impact, and that the team will improve with several players being invloved, and not just two of them, because you can give him a Max extension, and if he deserves only 75% of that, it's a room lost for another player contract.

That was the main problem for a lot of team like SAC, MIN or PHX. You have one or two young guys shining without really winning, and you're afraid to loose him and give him a Max extension, while he would certainly have lower stats once the roster is full of good players and you're contendingI hope it will not be the case here.

D21 wrote:The potential problem is that if John and Trae take almost all the actions because there's not enough other players taking shots, plays..., they will look like All-Star before being really ones, and they will end up asking for Max without being sure they deserve it.I hope that the other young guys can have some impact, and that the team will improve with several players being invloved, and not just two of them, because you can give him a Max extension, and if he deserves only 75% of that, it's a room lost for another player contract.

That was the main problem for a lot of team like SAC, MIN or PHX. You have one or two young guys shining without really winning, and you're afraid to loose him and give him a Max extension, while he would certainly have lower stats once the roster is full of good players and you're contendingI hope it will not be the case here.

And it’s not Trae Young. While Atlantans wring their hands over every Luka Doncic highlight, they can find some solace in the fact that the new Hawks regime hit a home run with John Collins, who plays less like a Warrior and more like the next Chris Bosh

The Hawks are in the midst of a total rebuild under GM Travis Schlenk, a former Warriors front office member who wasted no time modeling his new team after his old one.

While most of the attention in Atlanta will be on Young’s ups and downs there’s a future star already on the roster, ironically enough, with no clear Warriors analogy in sight.To be fair, John Collins wasn’t supposed to be this good already; he might have slipped through the cracks and become the Chris Bosh of his draft class—a productive tweener stuck between being a 4 or a 5, but still a clear building block for a rebuilding team desperately in need of one.

After missing the start of his sophomore season with an ankle injury, Collins’s December was about as good as it can get for a 21-year-old big man: 21.3 points and 12.9 rebounds in 31.9 minutes a night on 57.3 percent shooting. The list of big men to average 18 and 10 in their second season, as Collins is doing so far in 2018-19, is short and littered with Hall of Famers, but no one has ever averaged those numbers in fewer minutes per game than Collins. Of players averaging 18 and 10 in their sophomore seasons, only Shaq shot a higher percentage from the field.

What might be most interesting about projecting out Collins is that his current best skill is creating passing windows in the dunker spot and properly timing his rolls to the rim. Squint hard enough and there are some similarities between Collins and the Raptors version of Bosh; the quick slips in the pick-and-roll, the ability to run the floor, the dexterity in the post.

And the questions Bosh faced will be the same ones Collins will eventually encounter:

Can he protect the rim well enough to play the 5?

Can you build a team around him as the top scoring option?

There’s chemistry between Collins and Young in their pick-and-roll dance, even though Atlanta dials that up less than you’d think. Young has to be a building block; Collins just is one of them. The Hawks have an abundance of time, but thanks to the rapid ride of their second-year star, they might not need as much of it as they originally thought.

D21 wrote:The potential problem is that if John and Trae take almost all the actions because there's not enough other players taking shots, plays..., they will look like All-Star before being really ones, and they will end up asking for Max without being sure they deserve it.I hope that the other young guys can have some impact, and that the team will improve with several players being invloved, and not just two of them, because you can give him a Max extension, and if he deserves only 75% of that, it's a room lost for another player contract.

That was the main problem for a lot of team like SAC, MIN or PHX. You have one or two young guys shining without really winning, and you're afraid to loose him and give him a Max extension, while he would certainly have lower stats once the roster is full of good players and you're contendingI hope it will not be the case here.

nice post. Need some top 10 players to win a cchip

Thanks, he may end up being a top10 player, we never know, but until you're at the point you are he will, better create a situation where he can look like this without being it.

This thing is the scenario I hope we will never see in ATL rebuild. This is the worst to do in a rebuild and history proves it. I hope Schlenk plan is really about creating a system with at least 5 guys taking shots, and once they are all good, you can let one or two taking more responsibilities than other players but everyone has to develop and not as role players with the exception of Trae and John because the situation of last season made them easy to shine.

I prefer giving them all Max extension because they are contending and have all good individual stats, than seeing 2 guys have great individual stats getting Max too much early, being All-Star and with a team with no contender potential.

Or the only solution to avoid it is to add one or two top-15 veteran before that, so next off season max.

D21 wrote:The potential problem is that if John and Trae take almost all the actions because there's not enough other players taking shots, plays..., they will look like All-Star before being really ones, and they will end up asking for Max without being sure they deserve it.I hope that the other young guys can have some impact, and that the team will improve with several players being invloved, and not just two of them, because you can give him a Max extension, and if he deserves only 75% of that, it's a room lost for another player contract.

That was the main problem for a lot of team like SAC, MIN or PHX. You have one or two young guys shining without really winning, and you're afraid to loose him and give him a Max extension, while he would certainly have lower stats once the roster is full of good players and you're contendingI hope it will not be the case here.

nice post. Need some top 10 players to win a cchip

Thanks, he may end up being a top10 player, we never know, but until you're at the point you are he will, better create a situation where he can look like this without being it.

This thing is the scenario I hope we will never see in ATL rebuild. This is the worst to do in a rebuild and history proves it. I hope Schlenk plan is really about creating a system with at least 5 guys taking shots, and once they are all good, you can let one or two taking more responsibilities than other players but everyone has to develop and not as role players with the exception of Trae and John because the situation of last season made them easy to shine.

I prefer giving them all Max extension because they are contending and have all good individual stats, than seeing 2 guys have great individual stats getting Max too much early, being All-Star and with a team with no contender potential.

Or the only solution to avoid it is to add one or two top-15 veteran before that, so next off season max.

Yeah, I'm all about team ball for our Hawks. Been a fan since about 70 and am so frustrated with the big market, lack of parity in NBA. No matter how good of a core Hawks put together, they never landed the FA. I think TS has a team vision, à la GSW, maybe even moreso. I want a home-grown dynasty. I don't just want the Hawks to win a chip. i want them to put it to all the big market, player collusion, priviliged culture seen in the league and build a drafted, home-grown dynasty.